Je viens offrir mon coeur
by Zoisite
Summary: On what makes us human and the real meaning of the Revolution. Alternate ending to the Utena manga. (UtenaxTouga)
1. Foreword

Je viens offrir mon coeur [1]  
@--->--------------  
_Foreword_

_ " Let me be your chivalrous Prince,  
your true love, your knight in shining armour.  
Whatever your fantasy, I will fulfill.   
Together, we can direct the world to its rebirth.   
Let me lead you to Eternity. "_

This fanfic takes place circa the 4th **manga** of Utena, after she ascends to the castle in the sky with Anthy and the duellists to meet Dios. The duellists are, one by one, emprisoned in glass coffins as they attempt to run away from their fate.   
Only Touga is left, as he refuses to leave Utena's side.

The first part contains a short retelling of a few panels of the manga, before my opinion differs from Saito-san's. This is therefore an alternate ending to the Utena manga.

[1] French for "I came to offer my heart."


	2. Continuity

Je viens offrir mon coeur  
@--->--------------  
_Continuity_

_Qui a dit que tout était perdu?  
Je viens offrir mon coeur  
Tant de sang emporté par la rivière  
Je viens offrir mon coeur  
  
Ce ne sera pas si facile, je sais ce qui se passe  
Ce ne sera pas aussi simple que je le croyais  
Comme ouvrir ma poitrine et en sortir l'âme  
Un coup de couteau d'amour  
_  
F. Cabrel  
Je viens offrir mon coeur [1]

The castle floor lurched under her feet and she struggled for balance. With an ominous roar, cracks started to snake down the marble walls. Something terrible had happened. Something momentuous. And somehow, she felt it was all her fault.   
  
The ceiling began to sag at one end of the room. The supporting wall buckled under its weight. The whole structure seemed to shudder and the wall gave, the ceiling falling apart, a piece of it hurtling towards her.   
  
She felt something fall against her.  
Throw her to the ground.  
A scream died in her throat, then all went black.   
  
Utena coughed, bits of plaster and dust stuck in her throat. Her first realization was that, against all odds, she was still alive. The second, almost instantaneous, that the ground had stopped shaking. Everything was still. Eerily still.  
So she just lay there, breathing in and out slowly. She shouldn't try moving. She could be in shock, she could be hurt, crushed under that debris. She remembered, vaguely, seeing on television that people in trauma should not be moved. Was someone as lucid when they were in trauma?  
Could she be... dying? Crushed under debris from the castle she had dreamt of seeing. Crushed under... debris?  
She attempted a slow movement, to free her hand. The rest of her body was trapped, that she could tell, but when had a piece of marble broken from a ceiling ever felt so... warm. Not hard... Soft and yielding. Warm and soft anf yielding and... alive?   
  
Utena scrubbed at her eyes, gummed shut by dried tears and sticky plaster dust, then opened them, blinking in the light that filtered through the broken wall.   
  
If she could see, then she was not in trauma, was she?  
She moved carefully under the weight that pinned her to the ground and stopped short as she heard a low groan. Twisting towards the sound, her free hand moved of its own volition to cover her mouth.  
_ "Touga..."  
He was lying over her, his usually pristine white uniform dirtied and stained with blood.  
_ "You... you've protected me?"   
  
_ "Utena-sama?"  
Anthy. Utena could see her, from her vantage point on the floor. She was surprisingly unharmed, her rose bride dress as fresh and crisp as always, a bewildered look on her features.  
Anthy groped for her glasses, put them on, and with the index of each hand, wiped the grime off the lenses.  
_ "Anthy, you're all right! Touga..."  
Utena stopped fighting and let her exhausted head reast on the ground. Touga was eerily still above her.  
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with the certainty...   
  
She had been so cold to him, so cutting, she had thought that he was nothing more than a calculating playboy without feelings.   
And yet, he had proved her wrong, twice, at the cost of his own well-being. He had taken unto himself the pain meant for her.  
First Sayonji, then, after she had told him that she loved Akio, and not him, this.   
  
_ "Touga?"  
A soft moan, then the weight on her grew less as he struggled to raise himself on his elbows.   
_ "Touga.. don't move... you're hurt. Anthy! Please! We're trapped!"   
  
Her friend drug herself closer, not even bothering to get up, her dress tearing as it caught jagged edges of scattered debris.   
  
_ "Utena-sama... Are you unharmed?"  
_ "I'm all right, Anthy, I'm all right. Can you move the boulder? Only a few inches..."   
  
Utena twisted under Touga, until her back was pressed securely on the floor. She wrapped her arms around Touga's shoulders. As Anthy struggled against the boulder, her nails digging in the rock, Utena rolled away, pulling Touga after her with difficulty.   
  
He groaned as his back his the floor, and Utena scrambled off of him as quickly as her cramped muscles would let her.   
  
All her attentions focussed on Touga as his face contorted, then settled in an ominous stillness. She herself to her knees, scraping the soft skin on the rubble, and gathered him in her arms.   
  
_ "Touga... please!"   
  
His blue eyes opened, clouded in pain, but he smiled, the skin tight around the edges of his mouth.   
  
_ "I am sorry..."   
_ "Sorry? Why? You saved me..."   
_ "I won't be able to be much use to you now."   
  
Utena blinked back tears. This was not supposed to happen. They were all supposed to come out alive, after they found Dios. No one was supposed to die...   
  
_ "How touching."   
  
This voice, so mocking.   
  
_ "AKIO!"

[1] _ French for  
  
Who said that everything was lost?  
I came to offer my heart  
So much blood flowing in the river  
I came to offer my heart  
  
It will not be that easy, I know what is happening  
It will not be as simple as I thought it would be  
Like tearing open my chest and pulling out my soul  
A stab of a knife called love  
_


	3. Discordance

Je viens offrir mon coeur  
@--->--------------  
_Discordance_

_ "How touching. The last moments of a playboy. Did you swear your eternal love yet, Touga?"

Akio walked slowly around them, circling like a vulture around a corpse, his voice dripping with irony.

_ "Utena, I have to tell you the truth, I am not your Prince. Dios, my poor, poor, beloved other, departed this world today, thanks to the help of your soul-sword. Only I remain."

A scream ripped through the hall and Anthy started to sob, grabbing on to a piece of rubble for support, her nails digging in the broken marble.

_ "I'm sorry I lied to you, dear sister, but I could not live in this world knowing he did too. Yes, I needed the sword to open the way to the chamber where he locked himself up, but I also needed it to kill him."

_ "Are you trying to obtain the revolution for yourself?" burst out Utena.

_ "My dear, didn't your boytoy here tell you? The Revolution has already happened, since Dios is dead and I am alive free to reign over all..."

An uncertain voice rose to interject, and Anthy, sobbing, drug herself across the floor to be closer to her companions.

_ "The Revolution... is not about power. It's about people's feelings."

_ "Touga... don't talk..."

_ "The Revolution... can't be undone..."

Touga started to cough, and Anthy let herself fall by his side, on her back, arms flung wide, like a porcelain doll dropped by a capricious child. As in a trance, her voice, stronger, completed his words.

_ "The Revolution can't be undone. If a bride without a soul can be made to feel friendship. If a heartless playboy can be made to feel a perfect unblemished love..."

Utena turned to her friend in surprise as she continued to speak, her voice more regal, more self-assured, than she had ever heard.

_ "You must be defeated. For Dios."

Akio laughed.

_ "Will you fight me yourself Anthy? Will Utena? Touga? And what weapon will you use? This is the end."

_ "Anthy? The sword?" 

Anthy's hands shot to her chest, grabbing fistfulls of her Bride's dress as if she expected the sword to appear.

_ "I'm sorry, Utena-sama..."

_ "There is no more sword of Dios!" Akio cut in, a smirk of his face, "When Dios hid his body in this castle, he entrusted his soul to Anthy, along with a mission. To find you, the woman whose soul-sword was capable of destroying even me. She gave up her own soul to shelter his. Now that he is dead, there is no more sword of Dios."

_ "Anthy, say this isn't true!"

Mechanically, the girl continued to tug at the front of her dress, an empty, lost look in her eyes.

_ "I'm sorry, Utena-sama."

Tears prickled Utena's eyes and she closed them, unwilling to show weakness in front of the one she had loved, the one she had loved and who had betrayed them. Yet moisture still seeped through her heavy lashes. It was over.

_ "Then... we have lost..."

Utena felt a soft touch on her face, Touga's fingers wiping away her tears, and she opened her eyes to gaze in his brilliant blue ones.

_ "Tenjou... Listen to me..."

His voice was so low she could barely hear it. She bent closer to him, hanging on his every words.

_ "There is... a way..."

His hand clasped hers and moved it so that it rested on the center of his chest. She jerked back as if burnt when she was suddenly reminded of herself as she had so often been with Anthy, before the start of a duel. Anthy, the Rose Bride offering herself to her.

_ "I can help... take me..."

_ "Touga... no..."

_ "I was always yours... take me..."

_ "Touga..."

_ "This is the only way. Utena..."

Touga smiled. His eyes focussed on her, only her, a dying man holding on to his lack anchor to life.

A raw whisper.

_ "I love you."

He gasped and his head snapped back as his back arched in her arms. She felt it, in her palm, the jutting coldness of a sword-hilt. His soul sword.

_ "I can't..."

His shaking hand grasped hers, wrapping her fingers around the hilt. She felt him, taunt in her arms, as he surrendered his soul to her.

White light flooded the hall as Utena pulled his soul sword all of the way out. Anthy blinked, and scrambled to her knees, as she gazed in rapture at the beautiful shining white blade. Worthy of a Prince.

The light waned, and Touga went limp in Utena's grasp. But the glass sword remained firmly in her hand. Tangible. Real.

_ "Touga? Touga?"

She held him close to her, burrying her face in his neck, tears falling in his soft hair.

A whisper.

_ "I'm... not worth your tears..."

A scream.

_ "UTENA-SAMA!"

A reaction.

Utena turned around quickly, the slim shining blade of her rapier stopping Akio's. She strained against him, unable to counter, forced in a deadlock. She could not move with Touga held against her.

_ "Using your Prince as your bride... You really are desperate, Utena."

_ "My... Prince?"

_ "Silly girl, unable to see what was plainly in front of you all the time. I was generous, I sent you your own Prince to lead you here. He never believed it though. He always thought that he was not worth being anyone's Prince. Least of all yours."

Anthy came closer and reached out, taking Touga in her arms.

Utena laid her hand against the flat of her blade and, with the combined strength of both her arms, pushed Akio back and scrambled to her feet, the tip of her sword shaking visibly.

_ "You're lying!"

_ "Why would I lie to you at a time like this, in the midst of my revolution? Your Prince is lying there, his body broken. Will you destroy his soul as well? Do you know the concentration, the life-energy, it takes for him to sustain the sword you hold in your hand? Will you let him die just so you can have a weapon to challenge me?"

Akio took a few quick steps and smashed his blade against hers. Utena stumbled back, almost dropping her sword.

_ "Utena-sama!"

Tears welled up in Utena's eyes as she turned to Anthy and Touga.

_ "Anthy! I can't do it!"

Akio's blade rose from her blind side and dug into her arm. She doubled over and dropped to the floor.

_ "Do it for me", Anthy's voice rose uncertainly, as she repeated words whispered to her, "because this was my choice, to protect my Princess. I would have fought for you, but now this is all I can do..."

Akio dove towards her with a killing blow. She scrambled for her sword, feeling a surge or relief as the hilt comfortably fit in her palm, and thrust it out. It barely stopped the attack.

_ "Why are you doing this, Touga? You are dying for an ungrateful woman. The only reason she is fighting me is because she learnt that I used her. But even now, she still loves me. No you, me. She told me she loved me, Touga, has she ever done the same for you?"

_ "Touga, don't listen to him!"

_ "She whispered to me that she belonged to me, in the middle of the night, as we made love while you waited for her to come back, looking out the window. She was not thinking of you then, she was mine."

Utena's tear-filled eyes opened in horror as Akio's lunge struck against the delicate weapon she held in her hand with such force the glass blade creaked ominously, cracks snaking along its length.

_ "Her skin is delightfully soft. And I have to say, of all the woman I have slept with, none have surrended to me quite as completely. What else could she do, having chosen me over you? Did she ever let you touch her?"

He disengaged, and, as she took a step back, her foot hit an obstacle.  
She fell. Her opponent loomed over her, ready to strike down, and she prepared for one last desperate defense. 

A realization.

Touga was losing faith in her. The sword would break. She would be defeated, and die. And she would have rendered his own death meaningless.

A capitulation.

Anthy looked down and saw Touga's face, contorted in pain. She gathered him in her arms and held him tight against her, then whispered fiercely:

_ "Love is unselfish. It's not about having your feelings returned, it's about protecting the one you love."

A revolution.

Utena pointed her blade at Akio in a last gesture of defiance. The glass blade shattered, every fragment shining like a myriad of small suns, brighter, brighter, until the light ate the darkness in the room, leaching colors, leaching shapes, until all there was was pure blinding radiance. 

Akio screamed.  
There was a faraway sound like a sword dropping to the ground.  
But it could also have been a drop of water trickling off a leaf into a pond.  
Akio's wail died.  
Then all that was left was silence.

**_To be concluded..._**


	4. Uncertainty

Je viens offrir mon coeur  
@--->--------------  
_Uncertainty_

Utena walked in the hospital tentatively, a bouquet of red roses held so tightly in her grasp that her knuckles turned white. She knew they would all be there. She knew that, like at that time he got injured by Sayonji, they would blame her for his wounds.

She had not bothered to call the hospital to know whether he was alive or dead. They had said that this night would be crucial. If he survived, he would live. But they were not sure he would make it through an hour, much less a full night. She did not dare call ahead because she wanted to pretend as long as she could that he was alive and waiting for her.

He would be sitting up in bed, the crisp white sheets pulled halkway up his torso, his long slender fingers entwined. His red hair would fan out on the pillow and he would smile at her. He would probably toss her an empty compliment, belittle the severity of his illness, and make her at peace with the world.

But what if he wasn't?  
What if he really had died in surrendering his soul to her?  
Could she carry the burden of having murdered her own Prince?

She remembered the story her mother had told her when she was little. How in a life, you have one Prince, one person who will complete you and protect you and love you. She might have lost him forever because she was blind. Because she thought that looking at the outside was enough, that the playboy was devoid of a soul, when he had the most beautiful, shining soul of all, a soul to rival Dios's in its clarity of purpose.

Utena walked in the elevator, and pushed the buttons for all the floors.  
When it finally stopped at his floor, she faltered, then stepped into the hall.

Stark and white and empty, if it were not for a few ugly metal chairs pushed against the walls. Miki was sitting there, biting his fingernails. Juri's head was dropped in her hands, her golden curls hiding her face. Sayonji was pacing the hall, bouncing a boken in his palm. For an instant Utena wondered why he was allowed to bring it in at all. She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at those people who were his friend before he even met her.

Juri looked up. 

Utena's arm fell to her side, the rose petals caressing the floor.

The words stuck in her throat, the words of comfort she had planned so carefully.  
Instead, she kneeled down and laid the flowers in the middle of the corridor, on the cold white tiles of the floor.

_Please understand..._

Juri looked at her.

_I grieve with you..._

Juri slowly got up.   
Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffed up, they spoke of a night spent in vigil.   
She knelt and took the roses, then turned and walked back to her chair, sitting down.

Utena stared at the empty floor for a few minutes. She had finally dragged herself to her feet and pushed the button on the elevator when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Miki's kind blue eyes seemed to smile at her.

_ "He knew, Utena, and we also knew. I am thankful, Sayonji and Juri too. You gave him a beautiful gift. You gave him his revolution. A revolution of feelings. There is nothing more pure, more beautiful, than feelings."

The last thing Utena saw were Miki's blue eyes as she pushed the button marked 'lobby' and the elevator door closed.


End file.
